DD or digital distribution...
IS THE CAUSE FOR MOST PIRACY AT THE MOMENT!!!
The protection used (Solidshield) is extremely easy to crack, it can be cracked in a coffee break for experienced crackers.
Stuff like Securom\Safedisk takes a couple of days with most games these days.
So, often there are games that go uncracked until a digital distribution release is made. Then the cracking groups crack the exe in that and just release that as the crack for the optical version.